This is a very large question, but let me say a couple of things.
I am concerned that there is an extraordinary degree of groupthink, both at the Canadian government level and among the international community, with regard to Afghanistan. I have never seen such a dense, self-referring realm of groupthink, if you like. I think it has given us an unbalanced aid program, in being focused on national programs.
Some of the earlier witnesses who have appeared before you have not satisfied you in terms of being able to tell you what Canadian aid is actually doing when we contribute as a minority player to these national programs. I have to say that some of those programs are doing very well. The national solidarity program is working at the village level in thousands of villages. The micro-credit program is doing very well too. In my view, these are aid dollars well spent.
I don't think it is balanced, because it is putting too much weight on programming that's going via the Afghan government. In my view, if the Canadian government is doing a national program, it should also be doing, at the same time, a program at the grassroots that funds a Canadian or Afghan NGO, so that a committee like this can get feedback as to what those top-down programs are doing at the grassroots level. We are in fact working with the national solidarity program, and I must say again that it is doing extremely good work.
As far as security is concerned and its impact on the programming, your going out to see these things is quite different from our national staff going out to see these things. It has to do with the security approach you use. If you're going out, you will be exposed to a force protection approach: you'll be traveling in an armoured vehicle and you'll probably have Canadian soldiers providing the security. If you're a national staff member of CARE Afghanistan, you're going out in a local vehicle, you are an Afghan, you speak the language, and you're not carrying anything that has to do with your work. You're virtually invisible, in the same way as the Taliban is invisible to our soldiers.
There is a lot that can be done, but you have to do it using a different security measure, and that is acceptance and invisibility, if you like, rather than force protection.